The Art of Weaving Loom

FOSTERING A NEW AND COMPETITIVE APPROACH TO CRAFTS AND SEMI-INDUSTRIAL HIGH ADDED-VALUE SECTORS The Art of Weaving Loom Co-funded by the PORTUGAL Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union The Art of Weaving Loom BASIC CONCEPTS ............................................................................................................ 3 FABRIC STRUCTURES .................................................................................................... 4 WEAVING DIAGRAMS AND HOW TO READ THEM ............................................. 6 WARP CALCULATIONS ................................................................................................... 7 CONTENTS WARP WINDING ............................................................................................................... 9 WARP ASSEMBLY ......................................................................................................... 15 WEAVING ........................................................................................................................24 GLOSSARY ...................................................................................................................... 27 The Art of Weaving Loom 1 | BASIC CONCEPTS The Art of Weaving Loom LOOM AND ITS COMPONENTS TOOLS AND MATERIALS Hedle Weft Warping board Measuring tape Shafts Warp Shuttle Ruler Treadle Ruler Flat shuttle Yarn Cloth beam Countermarch Bobbin winder Strip of cotton or other thick cord for tempo- Warp beam Treadle cord Bobbin rary knots Reed Crank handle Reed hook Beater Shears Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union 3 The Art of Weaving Loom 2 | FABRIC STRUCTURES Weaving is performed by an orthogonal crossing of two parallel yarn systems, the warp and the weft, according to several sequences, in order to create different structures. Although fabrics can exhibit very diverse looks, structurally there are only 3 fundamental structures: tabby, twill and satin, which allow an infinite number of derivations and com- positions. Any fabric produced in a loom is based on one or more of these 3 yarn cross forms. TABBY Tabby is the most basic weaving structure and it distinguishes itself by the alternating in- terweaving of the weft yarns and the warp. Each weft yarn passes under 1 warp yarn and over the next, and so on and so forth, creating a checkered effect. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme 4 of the European Union The Art of Weaving Loom TWILL Twill distinguishes itself by the passage of the weft yarn under 2 warp yarns in a row and over the next 2, creating an advance of 1 yarn in the next passage. This sequence and the misalignment between passages creates its unique pattern of parallel diagonal lines. SATIN Satin distinguishes itself by the passage of the weft yarn under 1 warp yarn and over the next 4, creating a discontinuity between interlacements. Due to the fewer interlacements, this structures creates more fluid fabrics, in which one side the weft yarn is more visible and on the other side the weft yarn is more visible. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union 5 The Art of Weaving Loom 3 | WEAVING DIAGRAMS AND HOW TO READ THEM Fabrics can be represented graphically through diagrams that provide us with all the nec- essary guidance to produce a specific fabric. The format we use here is the most com- mon, but they can be depicted in several ways. Threading: always depicted in the horizontal axis. It states the sequence in which the warp yarns should be laced into the shaft heddles. Each horizontal line rep- 1 resents a shaft and the numbering indicates the warp yarn threading sequence. Threading is determined in the building phase of warp in the loom. Shaft to treadle connection: this connection is represented in the junction of the vertical axis and the horizontal axis. It shows which shafts should be connected to which treadles, in a way that the treadling produces the chosen fabric structure. Each vertical column represents a treadle. The shaft numbers that should be con- 2 nected to it are present in that column. Usually, each weaver has its loom permanently tied with a set of shaft-treadle connections that allow him to execute his most frequent fabric structures, changing only the warp threading and the treadling to produce different fabrics. Treadling: always depicted in the vertical axis and specifies which treadles should 3 be activated in order to produce the desired fabric. Drawdown: represents the resultant fabric effect of the instructions contained in the other 3 quadrants, through a scheme of positives and negatives. The dark 4 squares represent warp yarns and the light squares represent weft yarns. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme 6 of the European Union The Art of Weaving Loom 4 | WARP CALCULATIONS Warp is the set of longitudinally disposed yarns forming part of the fabric. In looming, these are the yarns that are kept in tension in the weaving preparation (also in the longitu- dinal direction). Before we weave a warp it is required to have a design in mind that’ll define which type of fabric it will consist of: which structure it will have, if it’s dense and heavy, or looser and lighter. For this demonstration we will produce a small set of pieces with warp and weft linen, with a thickness of 35cm and length of 180cm each. Performing the calculations of the warp entails, once the design has been established, calculating the sett and the length of the yarn warp to weave. WARP SETT The sett of the warp is defined by the number of yarns that exist per centimeter. To decide this value we can simply grab a ruler and roll over the unit of the centimeter the same yarn we’re going to use on the warp, spreading the yarns according to the sett that we desire. More yarns per centimeter will create a denser warp, while less yarns per centimeter will result in a lighter warp. In this case, we opt for a sett of 6 yarns per centimeter. To know how many yarns our warp will have, we just need to multiply the number of yarns per centimeter by the width of the pieces we’re going to weave. So, if we’re going to weave pieces with a width of 35cm and a sett of 6 yarns/cm, our warp will have a grand total of 210 yarns (35cm x 6 yarns). Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union 7 The Art of Weaving Loom WARP LENGTH The length of the warp depends on a set of factors that must be taken into account separately: Length of each piece and the number of pieces that are going to be produced with the same warp: if we’re going to weave three 180cm pieces, we’ll need 1 540cm of warp length. Take-up the tissue: take-up is a “shrinking” effect of the warp resulting from the curvature of the interlacing between the warp and weft yarns during the weaving. This interlacing causes the warp yarns to cover a bigger extension than the linear length of the piece we’re weaving, since the warp yarns will circle the weft yarns between the upper and lower part of the fabric. Take-up is influenced by 3 factors: the thickness of the weft yarn, the beating of the warp and the fabric structure. The thicker the weft yarn, the more take-up it generates, as it creates more distance between the upper and lower part of the fabric, forcing the warp to cover a bigger distance between the two sides. The more we hit the weft, or the denser, more take-up is generated as well. Regarding fabric structures, the more interlacement 2 it has (yarns caught in the warp), more take-up is generated. As each fabric structure has a different interlacement number, this choice directly affects the take-up rate. For example, tabby is the structure that generates more take-up while satin is the one that generates less, due to its low interlacement count. However, warp sett and fabric structure are only relevant in the computation of very long warps, namely those used in industrial production. In our scale of work, these two factors won’t be taken into account. The factor we’ll take into account is the thickness of the weft yarn and in this case we designate only 10% over the length that we set initially for the pieces that we are going to weave. That is, to weave 3 pieces with a total extension of 540cm, we’ll add a 54cm margin of take-up. Gap between pieces: the gap between the pieces we’ll weave is something that should be established in the design, because it can contemplate hems of variable 3 length, long fringes or it can be even nonexistent. In our design we’ll have 20cm margin between each 2 projects (each piece will have a margin of 10cm in each extremity). Waste: waste results from the length of the warp that is retained between the con- clusion of the project and the ties in the back ruler when it comes close to the back of the shafts, and also because of the extension of length used in the ties of the 4 warp. The value to consider varies according to the equipment used and the warp assembling method, but using the loom and the method here described, we esti- mate 40cm of total waste. Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme 8 of the European Union The Art of Weaving Loom In short, the length of the warp will have to take into account the following factors: TOTAL LENGTH OF THE PIECES TO BE WOVEN + FABRIC TAKE-UP + GAPS BETWEEN PIECES + WASTE In our specific case, we’ll have to count 540cm of length for the to-be woven pieces. 54cm of take-up rate, 40cm for the gap between pieces and 40cm of waste, which totals 665cm of total length to be warped.

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